


The Time Shift

by JuweWright



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Multi, Physics, Science, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. John Watson, a journalist with a dark secret who is working for "The Metro" is asked by his boss Lestrade to find out about the physicist Sherlock Holmes who claims to have invented a time machine. John is fascinated by the work of his new acquaintance and together with him and forensic specialist Molly Hooper stumbles into the adventure of his lifetime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Physicist

**Author's Note:**

> It's been quite a while since I wrote my last Sherlock-FF. I have never been one for AU fanfictions. Usually I stuck pretty close to the original CD canon trying to do the updated version of older stories. This is my first real AU story which somehow presented itself whilst I had the worst cold ever. As I am both a scientist and a journalist, this seemed to be an interesting challenge to take up. So here we go: Journalist John meets Physicist Sherlock. I am going to try to stick to the characters though and not go OOC with any of them. If Sherlock looks a bit OOC at times just imagine what he would be like if he had not become a detective whose biggest trump is his ability to "read" people. The Sherlock we encounter here is a scientist and scientists are (believe the wisdom of the lab-rat) loners. If any stuff comes up that is science-speak and I make the mistake of NOT explaining it somewhere in the notes along the way, please feel free to ask. I might assume that things are common knowledge at times which are not. I'm a bit of an idiot-nerd sometimes. But I have the ability to learn, so talk to me :-) Apart from that: Rated T for safety and because although I have made quite a bit of progress in the writing already I don't have the foggiest what might happen later on in the story.
> 
> Have fun! Enjoy! And: I LOVE feedback, so leave some!

THE TIME SHIFT - Chapter 1: The Physicist

„It's impossible."

Sherlock Holmes stood up from his cluttered desk pushing the papers away which he had been studying. In a domino effect several books, two coffee mugs and a glass bottle containing the remnants of some oily brown concoction thumped to the floor. The bottle shattered and Sherlock growled. He would need to clean that up before Mrs Hudson came in. The old woman was used to the mess he left behind and never complained about coffee-stains in the carpet or shoes caked in mud that he left lying about for her to clean, but she was incredibly afraid of anything of his "science nonsense". There had been a time when she had not been that picky but since one of his experiments had gone wrong in her presence and left him with burnt eyebrows and hands, she had become a bit jumpy. He didn't mind. She was still the only cleaner in the world who would ever enter is realm and he would never have found anyone else who so stoically accepted his mess.

Sometimes he even thought she liked him – although what he had done to deserve that debatable honour quite escaped him.

He went over to the apparatus he had set up during the last couple of weeks. It was not finished yet, but it was a true reproduction of what he had found in an old Da Vinci manuscript. Of course Da Vinci had never built one of these machines himself but Sherlock could not help admiring the genius behind the detailed drawings. He'd only changed minor details in parts of the construction, had added a few valves, linked the single parts to a highly developed computer based surveillance system and used different materials from the ones intended by the old Italian – who in his time obviously could not have known about the advantages of carbon fibre over steel and wood.

Sherlock sighed. He had come so close but there was still an issue with the continuum-generator that he had been unable to solve yet. Studying Da Vinci's work didn't help much with that because that chap had never built the construction nor known anything about timelines and the necessity of keeping them intact.

Sherlock pressed his fingertips together and tried to focus but his outburst had thrown him back into reality and reminded him that there were things every human being had to tend to from time to time. He looked at his wristwatch and did a quick calculation: Three days since last calorie-intake – exactly – and almost four hours since last caffeine-intake. Also – he winced at the thought – two days and two hours without nicotine. No wonder he was unable to concentrate on anything.

He took his long black coat from the door-hanger and grabbed his scarf from the desk. He would be back soon enough to clean up the broken glass before the cleaners came, but fresh air and some of life's minor joys needed his attention now.

He was a late worker and the security guard knew him well, greeting from afar without being a nuisance trying to annoy the scientist with his small talk. There were a few other laboratories still occupied. Scientists all had the tendency to work crazy shifts when they were on to something. Sherlock noticed that part of the forensics unit was still alight. So Molly was still working as well. She was a shy young thing with brown hair and a plain face, nothing special if you first met her. But a couple of years of acquaintance had shown him that she was pretty clever. Pretty clever on the standard scale of human cleverness that was. He never compared others to his own intellect. It was too clear that his brain worked on a completely different level and there was no need to embarrass anyone – unless they were annoying self-obsessed idiots like this Anderson-bloke from the geophysics department who had decided to hold a seminar series to shove his fundamentally wrong bullshit into hundreds of unspoilt students' faces.

Sherlock hesitated in his stride for a mere moment wondering whether he should ask Molly if she wanted a coffee as well but decided against it. Although the question as such was absolutely logical and perfectly trivial he knew she would take it as something on an emotional level he had no access to. Molly was like that. It was her only really big flaw in his eyes.

He walked out of the building without another glance back. Otherwise he'd have seen an oval white face with a few freckles around the nose at one of the hallway windows. Molly Hooper knew the sound of Sherlock Holmes' steps in her sleep. She would have known them everywhere. She had noticed the sudden change in his pace when he had passed the doors of her lab and wondered: Had he been contemplating to come in and check in her? She knew he had issues with other people. He didn't connect with others in the same way that normal people did. But somewhere deep inside him, she was sure, even Sherlock Holmes possessed the skill to like or even love somebody. Whatever Anderson said about him behind closed doors, she would never believe that Sherlock was nothing more than a thinking machine and someday she hoped she would be able to prove it.


	2. A Strange Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small notes of explanation: Peter Higgs is a Scottish Physicist who predicted the existence of the Higgs boson which has been discovered at the CERN in Switzerland last year. "The Metro" is a free newspaper you can pick up all over Britain mainly at railway stations and on the bus. The "unexpected winter" is something that Britain seems to encounter every single year. One would think they'd get used to it, buy snow chains and be prepared for the snow but since I have been obsessed with Great Britain, I have never seen a country less able to cope with their own climate in winter.

THE TIME SHIFT - Chapter 2: A Strange Encounter

John Watson was finally on his way home from work. The day had been more than tedious. Firstly he had tried to finally ask Laura out which had led to a pretty embarrassing moment in the canteen, when she had dropped her full tray onto the floor laughing way too hard and way too loud. Secondly the story he had asked the intern to write up had turned out to be the perfect example of how not to write a journalistic piece and had needed re-writing rather than revision and finally he had spent hours in a hotel-lobby waiting for an interview with Peter Higgs who had – after a day of press-conferences, lectures and meetings – been reluctant to do the promised interview and had sent him away – respectively had him sent away by his manager – to come back tomorrow. John had had to call his boss to tell him the feature on Higgs would need another day and that something else needed to be dug up to fill the space reserved for that feature.

Lestrade – usually quite a nice and understanding boss whom John looked up to and respected – had been yelling abuse through the phone and called him names before hanging up and calling back a couple of minutes later with an apology.

"After all it's not your fault if the man doesn't do as promised. I'll just throw the thing on the flu in that we had planned for next week. Just make sure you get him talking tomorrow. The particle is hot stuff and we've got the advantage to have been granted the first interview. Oh – and make him talk plain English, no science-speak that nobody out there understands. We're "The Metro" not "Nature".

John had promised to make the interview as easy to understand as possible - "dark matter" was a thing you could hardly explain without a bit if scientific detail after all – and then gone back to the office to cross-read the stuff he had done on the influenza epidemic. He had sent the article off to the printers just in time for the morning issue. Now it was almost midnight. He felt like a mess and probably looked like one and he was starving. There was a chippie close to the university that did crazy hours and served food in the middle of the night. He decided to take a detour and get some deep fried happiness on the way before heading home. There wasn't much left in his fridge and he did not feel like cornflakes and milk.

He stopped the car a few yards down the road from the chip shop and walked through the cold air. It smelled like snow and he wondered how long London would need this time to adapt to the completely unexpected winter.

There was one more person in the shop waiting to be served. The first thing John noticed was a shock of black unruly curls above a turned-up coat collar.

"Evening", he greeted the stranger and then ordered his meal from the boy behind the counter who looked as if he had never eaten any of the fatty stuff he served. "Fish and chips. Extra vinegar."

The other customer didn't look as if he ate anything either, John observed, watching the fellow from the corner of his eye.

"The Guardian or The Metro?" the stranger suddenly asked. His voice was quite dark but John did not even bother to think it didn't really fit the rest of the man because he was so surprised by the straight-forward and completely unexpected question.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The Guardian or The Metro? Which one do you work for? You're clearly not the Daily Mail-type, are you, so which one?"

"The Metro", John responded looking up into the guy's face. The man was a complete stranger but his face was one that John would remember his whole life, he was sure. The high cheekbones contrasted with the rather square chin and the thick brows above the geen-grey eyes. Not handsome. Not beautiful. But strikingly interesting. The eyes were glowing. John had seen that expression before in men whose intellect had been wide enough to perform miracles and whose deeds he had had to narrow down to what lay people, everyday people who commuted to work on buses and trains and picked up the free newspaper on the way, could understand.

"How did you know?", he asked still wondering how this stranger could have guessed his profession so easily.

The man shrugged.

"It's pretty easy. If I pointed it out to you, you would be less impressed."

He took the styrofoam box the thin boy had placed on the counter, tossed the lad his money and vanished out of the door without looking back at the startled journalist.


	3. The Mission

THE TIME SHIFT – Chapter 3: The Mission

Three Weeks Later

„John? Can I have you in here for a moment?"

Greg Lestrade seemed to be quite excited. An excited Greg meant either something really good had bubbled up – such as the Higgs interview which had been a great success – or something terrible had happened – such as the underground bombings a few years ago. John dearly hoped that it was the former and followed his boss into the office.

Lestrade's office was the office of a man who has long been in the same post and has no intention of leaving it soon. Everything in the room represented Greg and his life: From the old "case files" (his old articles which had earned the most acclaim) to the pictures of his family on the table and the shelves. The whole office shouted "Lestrade" in one's face. John's desk and workspace were today and neat and un-personalized. He didn't have a family nor any history he wanted to look back on with pride or put on display for everyone to see. He wasn't sure whether "The Metro" would keep him on board if his past ever was uncovered, so he tried not to settle in too much. But at the same time he did everything to prove he was a decent enough journalist.

Lestrade grinned – no beamed – from behind his desk and pointed to the spare chair in front of it.

"Take a seat, John! I've got something for you. Well. Don't really know whether it's really something yet. Might be a joke but sounds kind of interesting. Fellow here named Mr Holmes – probably has a PhD but don't know, it didn't come over the wire – works at the physics department at the University and claims to have built a time machine or – in his words – a "means of transportation through all four dimensions which as we are all aware of consist of space divided into three and time."

John stared. "Sounds like a madman."

Lestrade smiled. "Might be he's a madman, might be he's a genius. There's different accounts of him out there and I guess the two are related. Thing is, I want that story. I want you to go there and see what it's all about, before the official presentation scheduled for next month. I organized a meeting with the fellow. Seems to be a bit special but I guess scientists always are a bit – screwed. Don't take that personally, John. I know you belonged to that lot once."

John waved. "No offense taken. It's been quite a while." - And I've belonged to much a worse lot since then, he added in his thoughts. – "So when am I supposed to meet him?"

Lestrade looked at his watch.

"You've got an hour to sort yourself out and get to university. This might be a big fish."

John shrugged. He had not majored in Physics as his way had lain more on the biological and medical side of the science-world, but he knew as much as that time travel was pretty impossible and that there were simple physical laws that made it impossible. That guy had gone mad. But then… mad scientists made for a good story.

He booted his computer and typed the name Lestrade had given him into google search. The amount of hits was much higher than he had expected. Surely there could not be many people on this planet going by the rather unusual name of Sherlock Holmes. But it was quite impossible that the same man Sherlock Holmes had been a scientist in London working on quantum physics – and obviously time travel – had acquired five Dans in Aikido and a black belt in carate, written three books about the neuronal network of the brain and held several seminars on forensics in the USA. John scrolled further down to reveal three more books (one of them focused on the differences in tobacco ash from different kinds of tobacco, the second one was all about nature's poisonous plants and the last one was a guide book on how to keep bees) and finally a video. It had been recorded at some charity event and was titled "Sherlock Holmes receives her majesty's greetings."

John frowned and pressed "play". The picture was grainy, clearly the recording had been made with a smart phone and the ISO was automatically set to a thousand plus to compensate for the bad light in the room.

There was a tallish woman speaking on the small stage. John knew her from television but did not recall her name. She was one of the millions of interchangeable blonde Barbie dolls, which crowded the media. The person holding the phone clearly did not care much for the blonde either but filmed around the room. Faces came in sight and vanished again. There was the Prince of Wales and the duchess of Kent, there was an illustrious amount of well-known actors including Dame Judy Dench and Maggie Smith who were discussing something in hushed voices.

Finally the camera turned back to the stage where the Barbie doll had stopped talking and a screen had appeared on which Her Majesty the Queen was to be seen who thanked Mr Sherlock Holmes for his service to the crown. The phone zoomed in to a figure in front of the stage, a man in a black tuxedo who bowed slightly to the screen. John froze. The picture had been grainy enough he had not recognized the person at all, but although the sound was hardly any better than the picture, there was no mistaking the voice which now in a low murmur – amplified by the microphones around the stage – thanked Her Majesty.

"I'm honoured to be of service", said the strange from the chippie.

"I'm honoured to be of service", said Mr Sherlock Holmes.


	4. Two New Acquaintances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PCR: Polymerase Chain Reaction. Used to replicate DNA. Usually what you gather at a crime scene is not enough to run any decent tests with, so you need to use the tiny amount you have and reproduce it. This is done by throwing the sample into a small tube, adding some buffer to make the volume bigger and also throwing in the 4 bases (Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine) as well as polymerase (an enzyme). By heating the DNA up, the two strands that usually make up the double-helix structure will separate into two single strands. You go down to a lower temperature again. The polymerase matches the respective free bases to the single-strands, pairing Guanine with Cytosine and Adenine with Thymine. After one cycle you thereby end up with the double amount of DNA you started with. You can repeat the process a lot of times. So imagine that you do it 30 times, you finally end up with a decent enough amount of DNA (your starting amount being X that would be X to the power of 2147483648).

THE TIME SHIFT – Chapter 4: Two new Acquaintances

The university building and its' surroundings were buzzing with activity. Students were hurrying from seminar room to seminar room, from lecture theatre to canteen, from library to laboratory. John Watson could not help but smile at the recollection of his own days at uni. He had been one of these lads, just as full of hopes and dreams and as determined to make the most out of these few years between school and adult life.

He made his way to the part of the building that the woman at the information desk had pointed out to him. The tall complex contained both the physics department and – on the ground floor – the forensics lab. John recognized some of the equipment he could see through the windows that made it easier for security staff and passersby to see if there was any trouble. One of the doors opened right as he was about to walk past it and a young woman stepped into the corridor. She had not expected to see him and started when the door closed again and revealed the visitor. With a clatter, the bucket she had been carrying fell from her hands and crushed ice flew into all directions. She muttered a couple of four letter words and immediately was on her knees picking up a few very tiny plastic tubes that had been stuck in the ice. John knelt down as well and shovelled hands full of ice into the bucket.

"Oh no, mister. You really needn't do that. That's just been so stupid of me, starting like that just because there's someone in the corridor. I've been lost in thoughts you know. Happens when I haven't slept much. I get so clumsy. I'm s sorry, mister, you really needn't..."

John stopped for a second and held out his cold wet hand.

"John Watson" he introduced himself. "I work for The Metro. And you are?"

She smiled a self conscious smile and shook his hand. Her fingers were even colder than his own were from collecting the ice.

"Molly Hooper. I work here... well I pretend to work but most of the time I just drop things and make a mess."

John smiled. He could see she was much more than she said she was, much more than she thought she was. He had known people like Molly, yes he had been like her – but that had been a long time ago.

"Are these PCR samples?" he asked nodding at the bucket. She smiled.

"Oh, you know a bit about the business", she said delighted. "Yeah, I got some DNA from a crime scene this morning and ran a PCR. Will need to put them in the fridge now and sequence them later. You're from The Metro, you say? What are you doing around forensics?"

He smiled.

"I'm looking for someone from the physics department actually. A Mr Sherlock Holmes. You don't happen to know the man, do you?"

Molly shrugged.

"I guess nobody knows Sherlock Holmes as in really knows. I mean, I can take you to him if that helps."

"That would be most helpful indeed" responded John. She was a nice girl that Molly. And she seemed to be easy enough to get along with. He made a mental note to invite her to coffee later on. Molly took him – and her bucket full of cooled DNA – up the stairs to the physics department, typed in the code to open the door to the dimly lit corridor and pointed at the door at the far end.

"Do you want me to come with you or does he know you already?" she asked.

John shrugged.

"We've met briefly before, but I do not think he remembers..."

"Oh he remembers everything" Molly said lightly. "You'll be fine then."

She turned to go, hesitated, then added: "If he's too nasty, just come down again and we can go for a coffee. He can be a bit... sociopathic sometimes, but he doesn't mean to, really."

"And you are a bit in love with that guy", thought John. "Don't need to be a psychologist to see that."

He wondered why she did not take the chance of introducing them properly if it meant she could see the object of her adoration for a minute or two. But before he could ask the favour of her again, she had already run off with her bucket.

"Strange girl", murmured John. "But nice girl anyways."

He straightened his back and went down to the door she had indicated right when that door was pushed open and revealed an already familiar shock of black curls.

"What are you doing in the Hallway Molly Hooper?" I heard you typing in the code almost five minutes ago; absolutely unmistakable by the strange but ever-reoccurring lingering on the number five – oh!"

Sherlock Holmes realized it was not Molly who had waited in the hallway and frowned. Then a knowing look appeared on his face.

"So, Miss Hooper let you in, I guess. Never should base assumptions on data that sparse but it's usually her. The Metro, right?"

John nodded.

"We briefly met at the fish and chips shop down the road", he said.

"I know, I know. I'm not an idiot. Fish and chips, extra vinegar."

John gulped. Was it even possible that this stranger had remembered his order at the chippie?

"Dr John Watson, isn't it? Medical doctor probably, though you don't use the title any more."

Jon stared at his opposite. "I'm sorry, but how...?"

Sherlock went over to his cluttered desk and produced an old edition of The Metro.

"I commute here by underground", he said. "It's not that difficult to deduce the rest. But I don't want to bore you. You've come here because of the article I have asked 'Science' to publish which they are – as per usual – reluctant to do."

John nodded.

"Well you claim to have invented a time machine. I guess they want prove before they publish that."

Sherlock sighed.

"I guess it needs someone to make the disbelievers see past their narrow-mindedness, someone who knows how to talk to these idiots out there. That's why you are here. Took a bit longer than I thought, but it's worked out."

John shook his head.

"Wait a second. You are speaking as if you asked me to come. You didn't ask me to come. My boss heard of your research and sent me to investigate."

The scientist laughed joylessly. "You are unable to see past the obvious, Dr. But don't worry. You share the lot of most people. It's not your fault. You are here. That's what matters. You will listen to me and I will show you things you never imagined. It's not your everyday job. It will take time. And it might be dangerous."

He pointed towards a glass window that divided the office from the laboratory. The lab was dark but John could see the dark silhouette of a huge construction.

"This" said Sherlock with an excited gleam in his eye "is the past, the present and the future. And I didn't invent it. But let us start at the beginning."

He put on his long coat – the one he had been wearing when John had first seen him in the fish and chips shop- and threw the door open.

"After you, Dr Watson. I hope you don't mind that this story needs a bit of time."

John shrugged. Lestrade had given him this story and had not asked for anything else. Unless he got a phone call all he had to do was follow this rather strange bird around wherever he wanted to take him. Clearly Sherlock Holmes lacked social skills and empathy but for some reason John could not help but be fascinated by the physicist.


	5. Riddles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted the first 5 chapters over on FFnet first before I was invited to join the club here. So the next chapter will go up there and here simultaneously, as soon as I typed it (I wrote the first 10 chapters or so already during the Christmas holiday with pen and paper... which means I have to type them off which takes a while *sigh*). Until then: Tell me what you think of this so far!!! :-)

THE TIME SHIFT – Chapter 5: Riddles

Dr John Watson. He had not known the fellow when he had met him in the chip shop. The short blond man in the worn out black jacket had only been another idiot in a world full of idiots. Of course he had noticed the notebook in the pocket: A used notebook and a biro, no sign of a weapon though, so he had assumed the man was a press person rather than a policeman. His air and the way he spoke ruled out the celeb magazines, yellow press and horrible idiocy-newspapers such as the daily mail. He seemed a straight forward person, not an upper-class pampered bully. It had not taken much effort to match him to the Higgs article (especially as a picture of the interviewer – though an old one – had been published along the feature in the online edition of The Metro). And it had been the Higgs article that had given him the final key to solve the problem he had been facing. He was sure the device would work now and he needed John Watson to make this unbelievable truth accessible for the world.

Admittedly – he had not found out everything about the good doctor which had left him puzzled. About ten years of his life were absolutely untraceable. Whatever John Hamish Watson had done between 1992 and 2002, there were no traces left of it. Well – no traces except the ones the doctor carried on his own body. John Watson had – according to the record - never had an accident nor had he been shot or otherwise injured ... but the slight limp did not come from nowhere.

Sherlock observed the limp when they walked down the corridor. Left leg, probably a long healed injury. The limp might be partly psychosomatic. Sherlock was not one hundred percent sure but that was okay. It was a minor detail. The solution would present itself at some point in the near future.

"I am going to take you right back to the beginning", he said.

"Where would that be?" asked the journalist.

"The British Library."

They passed Molly's lab on the way out. Sherlock registered that she had last been in the hallway about five minutes ago – a deduction that followed her usual amount of perfume and the time it needed to evaporate in unmoved air at 22°C. His eyes found her in the second lab to the right where she was talking to the computer screen. It was a strange habit of people to talk to machines; completely senseless and pretty amusing.

Molly met his eyes and blushed. When she lifted her hand to wave he frowned. Molly never did that. But then he saw her gaze had shifted slightly to the right and was now fixed on John Watson who had also put up his hand to wave. Fine. Perhaps she would finally find a love interest that wasn't completely dumb. The last three fellows she had dated had been less than useless.

He made his way through the main university square, trying to blend out all the impressions that immediately jumped at him and still noticing way too much.

Two guys and a girl, clearly both in love with her waiting for a shot. She still believed they were only friends. Small guy has forgotten his homework. Lad just stole... wait a second!

He left the journalist standing on the pavement and was after the little thief. Within half a minute he had run him down, retrieved the purse and restored it to its rightful owner, a young blonde girl who thanked him with tears in her eyes. He so hated when they got emotional.

Grabbing John Watson's wrist, he shouldered his way into a side alley that led to the main road and signalled for a taxi.

"British Library" he ordered and then pulled the doctor in after himself.

The taxi entered the road. Sherlock assumed that the thick traffic would slow their progress lengthening the time it would take them to get to the library to about twenty minutes. They could have walked, but then there would have been people.

"That was... impressive" John said suddenly. "I mean... did you really see that pickpocket grab her purse? They were thirty yards away! And how exactly do you keep that fit? You jumped over a dust bin! Without even a second of hesitation!"

Sherlock shrugged.

"Yes to the first question. I happen to have more than 100 percent eyesight. Second question: I don't. I am just pretty quick at doing the necessary calculations. With the right acceleration, every man can jump over a dust bin. Now to you: You still did not answer my question."

"What question?"

"Are you a medical doctor? I know you did medicine and biology at university. There are certain records of you freely accessible at King's College. But you might have acquired your PhD in either of the two and I did not look that up because I did not have the time yet so I decided to just ask. I assumed medical because if it was biology, there would be no need at all to conceal the title in your current profession. Although as a medical man it doesn't make much sense either."

John Watson leaned back in his seat.

"It's a medical degree. I have never worked as a physician or a doctor after I got it so I usually don't use it. Just doesn't feel right."

He shrugged.

"How come you know so much about me, if I am the one who is supposed to find out things about you?"

Sherlock smiled.

"Because I tend to see more than the average person does. It can be quite a pain in the butt if all you want to do is focus on your research. Normal people have one great advantage: They don't observe anything unless it is right in front of them screaming for attention. I observe everything. Even if everyone is quiet, let us take the library for example... no. I won't explain it. I will demonstrate it. Let us play a game, Mr Watson. When we are in the library, try to observe as much as you can. We will compare notes on what we saw afterwards."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Watson spoke up again.

"A time machine now..."

Sherlock nodded.

"You will understand in time."

The journalist seemed to be content with that. Sherlock could not help but be surprised. Usually journalists – well people in general, him included, but journalists especially – were quite impatient if they were curious for new information. He had expected John Watson to fire away with question after question as soon as they got into the cab, but the man had not done as expected. Unusual behaviour. It was kind of intriguing. Everything about John Watson screamed that he had to be the ketchup type but no, he had gone for extra vinegar. Sherlock seldom found he reached a dead end in the observation of a character. John Watson seemed to consist wholly of dead ends. It was fascinating and disturbing at once. The worn black jacket should have told a story but all it told him now was that the journalist owned a cat or had been around a cat lately (easily told by the short white hair that stuck to the fabric everywhere). He couldn't even tell whether John was in a relationship, a thing that usually belonged to the first three things that presented themselves to the physicist.

So you are a riddle, he thought. A riddle that will need solving.

He liked riddles. He liked a challenge.


	6. Proving A Point

“So. There was a girl in a grey woollen sweater and a pink shirt. She was reading Shakespeare. Secondly: A guy in a blue jacket who was searching for philosophy books and a little thin woman with huge glasses in the astrology section.”

They were sitting in the early afternoon sunshine in front of a coffee shop. John had gotten himself a sandwich and some carrot soup whilst Sherlock seemed to be more than satisfied with a huge mug of coffee into which he had spooned about half a pound of sugar.

“The girl in pink first. What did you make of her?”

They had spent an hour or two in the library. Sherlock had shown the journalist the archives and the original Da Vinci manuscripts containing the drawings and descriptions for the time machine. John had been impressed. He had never been in the archives before nor had he ever seen a Da Vinci manuscript not secured under glass in a dimly lit and carefully ventilated room. He had tried to read the notes next to the drawing and found them to be gibberish before Sherlock had pointed out that Da Vinci as one of the world’s first known and most famous left handed had obviously written with his left hand mirroring the words.

“It was not meant to be a code or anything”, he explained. “It’s just easier for a leftie to write from right to left.”

John had nodded his agreement remembering numberless occasions when he had smudged his own writing with his sleeve.

“She was about twenty years old, middle class, hardly any make up on so probably no boyfriend and no lover. There was a student card in her purse. So she is a student of English literature and was in the library to prepare for a dissertation or an exam.”  
Sherlock took a sip of coffee. His face changed for a second when the black liquid ran down his throat, became less strained, more relaxed. John could not help but think that in this moment in the light of the afternoon sun the physicist looked like an old roman statue, someone left over from a time long gone by.

Sherlock’s eyes snapped open and John quickly looked away as if caught doing something improper. In the sunlight, Sherlock’s eyes had a different colour. They were almost blue now, no tinge of green left, just one spot close to the pupil.

John was pretty sure he had never seen anyone with eyes like that – or he had just never cared enough to look properly. They were entrancing, fascinating – and clearly mocking him right now.

“Almost right. She was twenty-five which I could see from the birthday she put down on her library card. Her student ID had recently expired. She had the photo of her boyfriend in her purse and she had stains on her fingers that led me to believe she was a chemist and only read Shakespeare for pleasure.”

He nodded, smiling.

“I guess, I have proved my point? I see things, I observe, I deduce. I can’t help it. It’s both a gift and a curse. Sometimes I would love to be able to just switch it off for one minute.”

“It’s impressive.”

John took another bite from his sandwich. He would need to keep this coffee shop in mind. They really served great food here. 

“What do you see, when you look at me?” he asked. For a second he regretted the question. What of Sherlock could see everything he had worked on to hide for so long? What of this strange man could tell his past with one glance? He would despise him, regret having told him even the very beginnings of the story, fascinating as they were.

Sherlock smiled.

“You, Mr Watson, are something I have rarely encountered before. You are an almost blank page in a book full of colourful illustrations and long descriptions. There’s a lot about your work and general life to be gathered from your way of speaking and writing but anything beyond the obvious is quite beyond me in your case. It makes you easy to be around.”

He seemed to want to add something else but then decided not to. Instead he lit a cigarette, looking at the glow with a tinge of guilt in his eyes, before he inhaled the smoke with the greed of the hopeless addict.

“Believe me Mr Watson, I am a lost cause” he said, rolling up his shirtsleeves and presenting two nicotine patches stuck to the inside of his arm.

“These things are supposed to help you quit but they only make me crave a real smoke more. It’s absolutely useless. Don’t ask me why I started in the first place, but it’s turned into a pretty strong habit.”


	7. The Time Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scientific stuff: I have not researched all of the stuff I mention in here. Some of it is common knowledge I guess (the physics-stuff). Whole genome sequencing... yeah, it still takes a while although there are huge machines today doing that. The fact is that most of the genes in two humans are alike. There are very very few variations. The "junk bits" Sherlock is talking about are bits of DNA that don't encode anything and are cut out (spliced) before the DNA is transcribed into amino-acids which then form the peptides. These "exons" are very variable because they don't really have a function. Whilst the variations in genes are easily counted (there might be variation 1-4 of some genes but most have less options), the variations in the junk-bits are limitless because they can easily mutate over time without producing a system failure. Very important genes usually stay the same over a long period of time (which means you will have the same code for the same peptide in a fish, a mammal and a human). My theory is that Sherlock has fed the system with the complete uniprot database and the fasta-sequences of all human genes (thereby being able to match John's DNA pretty quickly based on a small amount of information) and is only reading out the junk-bits bit by bit from the blood-sample. This means at the same time, that he could probably not transport a dog or a cat or any other animal via that system unless he fed it that information too... but I am babbling... let's get on with the story...

John was on his way to the university when his phone rang.  
“How’s things?” asked Lestrade. “Are you making any progress?”  
John grinned. His boss seemed to be very eager to get the story out.  
“I’m on my way to the lab right now”, he explained. “We had a good start, I suppose. I’ve read quite a few accounts that did not shed the best light upon his character but he seems to be alright with me. He’s just... well, strange. Very strange indeed. I don’t know if I remember this correctly but to me he seems to be a bit autistic, Aspeger’s syndrome I believe. But he’s a genius. If there is any man on this planet who is able to counteract the time paradox and invent a working time machine, I bet it’s him.”  
“How long will this take?”  
Lestrade’s voice sounded muffled. The reception in this part of town was always pretty bad. John shrugged.  
“I really can’t say that yet. I believe that there’s a lot more to it than... oh bugger!”  
He had not seen the police car in time but the police officer on the passenger seat had clearly seen him talking on his mobile phone whilst driving and was now gesturing for him to stop.  
John hung up without explaining the situation to Lestrade and made his best effort at explaining it to the constable instead. In the end, he left 120 pounds behind. Rather sour faced he raced towards the physics building and into the corridor just to bump into Molly again who was not carrying a bucket full of ice this time.   
She looked different. John was not quite sure about the particulars of “different” but it had a pleasant effect.  
Checking his watch he told her he was already late for his appointment with Mr Holmes but whether she would be up for coffee at three o’clock. She agreed with a happy smile and he ran up the stairs to find Sherlock standing in the doorway with his arms crossed and a knowing smile on his face.   
But instead of asking him, where he’d been, the physicist only told him to hurry and get inside.  
“I’ve got to show you something”, he explained, an excited gleam in his eyes, pulling off his jacket and pushing him through the door into the lab.  
John had only caught a glimpse of the machine the day he before and had expected – well he was not sure what he had expected but something along the lines of the 2002 H. G. Wells adaption. This apparatus now resembled nothing less than a Victorian chaise or any other kind of vehicle. It looked much more like an MRT.  
“Don’t worry. I did not steal that from the medical unit. Legally purchased it for my very own purposes”, Sherlock Holmes said. The narrow round opening was surrounded by cables and monitors and a thing that looked rather dubious as to its applying to health and safety regulations. About two dozen flasks containing different kinds of liquids were screwed to a metal stand. Some of the flasks were heated by Bunsen burners, the ingredients bubbling and slowly producing smokes and fumes that were transported through glass capillaries and mingled with smokes and fumes of different origin. In comparison to the rest of the high tech equipment this monstrous chemical power plant resembled a relic of a long forgotten past.  
“I know. It looks rather old fashioned doesn’t it?”  
Sherlock had appeared next to John, a tablet computer in his hand.  
“But it seems to work and I don’t see why I should change a working system if anything that people since Da Vinci’s days invented in that direction has been a complete failure. What you see before you is the rematerializer.”  
John stared at him.  
“Oh you know”, Sherlock went on. “The first issue you come across in how to transport a thing or an organism through space without harming it. The method is used in countless science fiction films but physicists all around the globe have been unable to build it. A time machine in a way is nothing but a teleporter with an extra coordinate.  
It has been achieved countless times to dematerialize something, divide it into its smallest entities, but until today man lacked the power of setting the jigsaw back together. Because nobody read these old Da Vinci manuscripts and used their brains to adapt them to today’s possibilities.  
Admittedly, I am not absolutely satisfied with this solution because to lay eyes it might still look a bit too much like witchcraft or alchemy but as neither my good friends at the Max Planck institute nor the people at CERN have come up with anything useful, I have been forces to rely upon ancient knowledge. What I really wanted to show you is this.”  
He pointed out a small electronic chip that was linked to one of the computers.  
“It’s one of the things I needed to solve on my own. You know the time paradox theory that time travel must be impossible as otherwise you would be able to go back and murder your own ancestor thereby annihilating your own existence?”  
John nodded.  
“Thanks to the big theorists of this century, there’s another theory which kind of solves the problem which is the idea that with every decision we make, we split the universe in two thereby creating one universe for every possible truth which finally sums up to an endless number of universes as there are a billion people on this planet of whom every single one makes a decision every couple of minutes. Don’t even try to calculate that in your head, I killed two of my best computers with it. Considering that there’s a universe already in existence then in which there is no you because your grandfather made the decision not to have you or got run over by an omnibus or any such thing, your “changing” the past is not so much changing the state of things but swapping one universe for another. This little fellow here keeps in mind the exact data of the universe you want to return to – this universe right here – and whatever happens and however much you screw up remains firmly attached to your current life like an anchor. It’s a neat little algorithm much easier than anything else about this device, as it is not focussing on the sum of the circumstances we live in right now but only needs the personal data of the traveller as a lead. I only finished it yesterday night and I wanted to boast to someone about it ever since. I tried Mrs Hudson – you know, or perhaps you don’t, she’s the cleaner here, really nice old woman actually – but she doesn’t have the faintest notion of what I am trying to do so she was a lost cause.”  
John looked at the monitor which only showed white lines.  
“Can you – somehow demonstrate this anchor-thing without using the rest of the apparatus?” he asked, his interest awoken. Sherlock nodded.   
“Put your thumb right here” he said, indicating a fingerprint-shaped valley in the chip.  
John followed suit and immediately the screen sprang to life. John saw his date of birth flicker over the screen, the name of his mum and dad and sister, the time he had spent at university, his blood type, a long row of letters that didn’t make any sense but to his schooled eyes was easily distinguished to be his DNA-code. He shrank back staring at a small incision in his thumb. A tiny drop of blood was building up. He shook his head.  
“You call this a simple algorithm? You use whole genome sequencing for this! How is it possible your chip can do it that quickly? Even the most up to date labs need about a day per person.”  
Sherlock shrugged. “It’s only a four-letter code. I have never been able to understand what everyone found so difficult about it. You just have to run four PCRs with my genetically enhanced polymerase. It’s not a secret, but nobody else ever thought about altering the thing and they are idiots in the ethics committee. But I am being rude. I’m pretty much – except for the little bit that is “real” sequencing - only using other people’s information in the vest way possible. Human DNA is 99,9% similar for everyone. You mainly need to focus on the junk bits that differ from person to person to determine one’s identity, the rest is going through the motions, it’s really quite simple-“  
John could not help but notice how changed the physicist looked when he was talking about his work. The restlessness, the strain that usually lingered on his expressions was completely gone, had been replaced by a happy excitation that made him look about ten years younger.  
John had spent some more time on goggle the previous night learning that the scientist was really the same man who had accomplished all the things he had come across in his first superficial search. It seemed impossible that a man, aged 35, had a PhD in three different scientific fields, published five books and so on ... but knowing Sherlock Holmes meant believing the otherwise unbelievable.   
“Have you tried it?” John asked suddenly before Sherlock could leap into another explanation about another part of the device.  
The physicist looked up.  
“Excuse me?”  
“Have you tried it?” John repeated. “You seem to be extremely confident that this thing is actually working. If you are that sure, it would be the next logical step, wouldn’t it? Trying it yourself. By that you could prove all of the naysayers wrong.”  
Sherlock grinned.  
“So, you believe me?”  
“Up to now you haven’t told me anything that didn’t sound plausible.”  
“I got an e-mail from Hawing today.”  
John’s chin dropped.  
“Stephen Hawking?”  
“Told me I am an idiot and if I were to try the thing I’d be killed. Well he did not write it like that, rather used the colourful description of what would happen to my dematerialized bits in space-time. He’s a charming fellow really.”  
“You don’t mean that!”  
Sherlock chuckled joylessly.  
“No, I don’t. In my eyes he is just one more idiot who can’t see the fault in his own theories.”  
“Hawking is a genius.”  
“Hawking is a prick. Just as all my other colleagues are pricks. That’s why I wanted you to be around when I finished the machine. You will record everything you see. You are a disinterested party. I haven’t paid you anything and I won’t censor any of your writing. I want the whole world to know the truth. You will be here as my witness when I try the machine.”  
John felt honoured – and frightened. The step from the enthusiastic genius to the madman seemed to have shrunk. Whoever saw Sherlock in his current state of agitation would have difficulty not to assume this man was out of his mind.   
“When will you do it?” John asked carefully.  
“This evening” Sherlock answered, back to his composed, measured self. “Just come up here after you had coffee with Molly. I should be through with the testing by then. And if nothing goes wrong – and I am pretty sure it won’t – I will be my first-ever subject.”


End file.
